Golf Politics: the Social Role of the Game in the United States and Beyond

SPORT AND GEOPOLITICS PROGRAMME GOLF POLITICS: THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE GAME IN THE UNITED STATES AND BEYOND Interview with Orin STARN / Professor of cultural anthropology and history at Duke University and author of The Passion of Tiger Woods : an anthropologist reports on golf, race, and celebrity scandal (2011) Conducted by Estelle BRUN / Research Assistant at IRIS APRIL 2020 GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY - SPORT & RI PROGRAMME / April 2020 ON GOLF, SEXISM AND RACISM IRIS: In your blog on golf and politics1, you mentioned the comments of Hank Haney – Tiger Wood’s former coach – which sparked controversy as he seemed to ignore that a major tournament in women’s golf was going to occur and guessed that a “Lee” would win it. This anecdote tackles two important themes in sports and politics: racism and sexism. How is the state of gender equality in golf, compared to other sports? Have you witnessed any particular improvements within the last one or two decades? ORIN STARN: Golf has a peculiar history in relation to gender equality. It was one of the first sports that women were allowed to play, along with tennis, croquet and other more "lady-like" games, in the 19th century, at a time when women were still banned from more "manly" sports, like football and wrestling. It was mostly upper-class white women, to be sure, and yet it was still a change from the past, when sports were viewed entirely as the province of men. The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) was the first women's professional league in any sport, decades ahead of the Women National Basketball Association (WNBA) or women's soccer leagues. It featured great stars like Babe Didriksen Zaharia, one of the first celebrity female athletes of the 20th century, a precursor to modern figures like Serena Williams and Marta. But golf has also been full of sexism and discrimination. Augusta National did not allow female members until about ten years ago, despite protests by women's groups. What many experts view as the top course in the United States (US), Pine Valley, still doesn't allow female members, today, in 2020. There is still a boy's club flavour to groups, like the United States Golf Association (USGA), and prize money is far higher on the PGA than the LPGA. When Hank Haney, a very influential figure in the golf world, joked about not even knowing that the U.S. Women's Open was coming up, it threw into relief the failure still to take the women's game seriously. There's still a long way to go in golf, as in virtually all sports, to anything like real gender equality. 1 See http://golfpolitics.blogspot.com 2 GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY - SPORT & RI PROGRAMME / April 2020 IRIS: Is the feminisation of golf a specific strategy adopted by the USGA? Why or why not? ORIN STARN: The USGA has tried to grow the game, with some outreach to people of colour and women. You see commercials with smiling African American girls or Latino boys, learning the game in USGA youth programs. But the USGA has limited influence and the reality is that it is a male-dominated organisation, that has never had a female president and has a kind of old-boy, blue-blooded boardroom mentality. IRIS: In your course entitled Sport and Society2, you explain that there has been an explosion of Asian golf over the past two or three decades. What explains such surge? ORIN STARN: Asia has been golf's biggest growth area in recent decades. Japan and Taiwan have golf traditions, dating back to the mid and even early 20th century. As far as China, a key reason for this is the way Chinese society has changed. Mao banned golf, and promoted table tennis as the sport of the people. But, with the market-oriented reforms, golf is now a legitimate sport, and the country is producing top players. Learning to play golf is even taught in some Chinese business schools because it's viewed as part of the cultural literacy for doing global business. Thailand is an interesting case, now producing some top golfers. The Tiger Woods factor is in play there, since, of course, his mother is Thai. He has made several trips there to promote his brand and the game. It's no coincidence that the growth of golf in Asia has paralleled the rapid growth of capitalist market economies since World War II. Golf and business are fellow travellers. Businesspeople have the money to play – for the expensive clubs, golf club memberships. And it’s a key in social networking everywhere. You will see Korean executives playing courses like Pinehurst, here, in North Carolina. 2 Orin Starn set up an online course centered around the role of sport in society using principles from anthropology and sociology, among other disciplines. The course is free and available to all on Coursera, a global online learning platform. For more information, see https://www.coursera.org/learn/sports-society#about. 3 GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY - SPORT & RI PROGRAMME / April 2020 Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of golf in Asia is that there is an explosion of South Korean female golf excellence, for a relatively small country of whatever it is – 40, 50 million people – is producing over a third of the top golfer female golfers in the world, and now a lot of top male players have started playing too. There is a whole set of questions. How does one understand the mystery of South Korean golf excellence? South Korean men and women have also excelled in archery and marksmanship, also in games involving aiming. Less than anything genetic, however, it is clear that women's golf has a special cultural history in South Korea. It began in the 1990s, with surprising success of the great Korean star Se Ri Pak. That was a time of economic crisis in Asia. Her success became a kind of model of national resilience and pride. Her example inspired many other young women to take up the game. She is the godmother of Korean women's golf. IRIS: In your book, The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal (2011), you explored the ‘Tigergate’3. How did Tiger Woods’ sex scandal reflect broader American anxieties over race and sex? ORIN STARN: Tiger Woods became a kind of god in US culture, notably at an interesting time with Barack Obama as president. There is a kind of idea – more precisely, a fantasy – in contemporary American culture that racism and evils of discrimination are a thing of the past, that America has entered a new "post-racial" era where everybody has the same opportunities and skin colour does not matter. The idea is like “Hey we’re not racist anymore, we elected a black president” and “hey we’re a racially egalitarian society, look we have a golfer who’s African American”. In reality - and it doesn’t take a lot to see this - America is still a racially divided society, and African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans face enduring structural inequalities. We still live in a racially divided society, no matter of the success of the likes of Obama and Tiger Woods. What happened with the sex scandal though was that a lot of the reactions – especially the reactions of internet chat rooms and the dark sides of the internet – were racist backlashes against Tiger. In these internet chat rooms, you would see the “n-word” and 3 In 2009, Tiger Wood’s nocturnal car crash erupted into a massive sex scandal when the press published stories on his various extra-marital love affairs, despite Tiger being married to Elin Nordegren at the time. The stories made international headlines and badly impacted the player’s reputation and career. 4 GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY - SPORT & RI PROGRAMME / April 2020 the worst kind of ugly racist stereotypes on Black sexuality and Black masculinity getting thrown at Tiger. And it’s impossible, after you went on the internet following the sex scandal, to say that racial stereotypes and racism have disappeared. This really opened up a kind of view of how persisting bigotry and stereotyping remain in this country. On the face of it, the coverage of Tiger of the sex scandal was very neutral, it did not say a lot about race, for instance that Tiger was African American, that his wife was white. But on the internet, it was a different story, people using the cover of anonymity to vent ugly racial views. If you read what was going on in 2010, you could have guessed that someone like Donald Trump might get elected eight years by taking advantage of latent white resentments and feelings of victimisation. There’s a line from racial slurs and hatred in response to Tiger and white supremacist ugliness in Charlottesville and elsewhere. The Tiger Woods scandal really showed us America hasn't put its racial demons to rest. ON SPORT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IRIS: Some scholars argue that golf can be an effective tool for social inclusion. Golf, however, is often perceived as a sport for ‘rich white men’ and has a long history of exclusion based on race and gender in the United States. As you mentioned in your Coursera course, some clubs did not allow African American players until the 1990s and others are still closed to women today. What do you think about the concept of sport as a tool for social inclusion? Considering golf’s history of racism and sexism, how do you situate this sport within this broader concept? ORIN STARN: Golf is, in many ways, behind the curves on racism and sexism.

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